The Way to a Man's Heart is Through His Stomach

The Stomachheart goes on...

2011-03-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. Obviously, this blog has become a little stale. I'm sorry, dear follower. But I am still cooking, writing and trying to find love.

And with the new year, there is a new blog:

A year without straight white men.

Enjoy.

Heart Birth

2010-10-27T09:27:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I've blogged but today is my birthday and I thought that it would be a nice present to myself to take the time to write here. Well, I also made a crappy gluten-free Betty Crocker chocolate cake with homemade cream cheese frosting and pecans. Good, but embarrassing to admit that I enjoyed (not just eating it, but only taking 5 minutes to make it).
You, dear reader, may be wondering why I haven't been blogging or cooking for guys. I've also been trying to figure that out. The other night I had this realization: I am closed. I don't mean close-minded (although I can be that) or picky (and that too), but I've shut myself off from imagining myself with a lover and I've gotten used to it. It seems impossible to start again. I practically avoid situations where I might even meet someone.

But this was the day that I was born. I'm approaching 30 so, maybe it is time that I give birth. Not birth to a baby or a small, yappy dog, but to me. To my heart.

SushiHeart

2010-08-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

My Sushi is Your Sushi
When I'm not cooking elaborate meals to entice boys to my house, the kitchen of my apartment becomes the congregation point for me and my roommates. This week one of my roomies organized a sushi night that got out of control.By the time we used up all the salmon, yellow tail, and eel we had almost twenty rolls of sushi. Other ingredients included teriyaki mushrooms, avocado, green onion, and pickled daikon, which is like a long radish. We also had chilled, creamy sake, of course.
There were only three of us, so all the sushi you see below (plus a few uncut rolls) was totally excessive. But there is nothing like bringing all our disparate lives together through building and rolling raw fish and seaweed.

Dinner 16

2010-07-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Order
It's been much, much too long, all you stomachhearts out there. Apologies for the delays, but life sometimes gets out of order and it takes a little time to get the recipes back together. The updates:

1. got a job
2. stopped dating dinner Guest 14/15
3. dinner Guest 5 sent me this amazing text: Omg. Date just cooked me dinner. "Dinner" = "vegetarian sloppy joes." Vegetarian sloppy joes = microwave leftover rice mixed with ketchup on white bread. Plz blog.

Well, everyone makes mistakes, but this stomachheart finally had another dinner to make up for all the lack of good cooking karma that might have been in the world.
A friend from school asked if he could come to dinner and it seemed like a nice, pleasant, not-too-awkward return to this experiment. I guess I forgot that this guy, a loud, hilarious playwright, always has a few tricks up his sleeve. I suggested he bring wine (not knowing that he didn't drink) and instead he brought me a printout of this photo of me. Then when I served the salad, he suggested we eat it last, it's a British thing, and he's from Canada, after all. And moments before we slurped into the chunky tomato soup with blue cheese, he regaled me with stories of family bowel-movement escapades from his childhood. Actually, the thing I like most about Guest 16 is his off-kilter humor and ability to make a joke out of any situation, but be gracious and insightful at the same time. It's sometimes difficult to keep up with him though and I found myself finally getting a joke several minutes after the punch or getting all tongue-tied. When I served the asparagus above, he said, "You must not like me too much, you know what asparagus does?" Took me a second but I realized asparagus makes your come taste really bad. How do I even respond to that? Oops!
By the time we got to the out-of-order salad, I saw the more sensitive side to my Guest. He told me about how he has come to terms with the possibility of being single for the rest of his life. This has always seemed like a scary possibility to me, but he has spent a long time "working on me" and making sure that he could live himself. He realized that if it came to that he would be okay. He is happy with who he is. Basically, YOU are the only person you ultimately have to deal with. He, of course, would like to find someone, like all of us, but feeding our own stomachhearts is the priority.

The Fourth of Stomachheart

2010-07-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

Divide and Conquer
I feel like the tradition of the 4th of July is based on some dicey situations and some not so friendly history that this great country has been a part of. Regardless, the present celebration is a time where friends and family get together, grill tons of meat, and watch fire explode in the air. Whatever the history and international relations of our wonderful USA, good outdoors cooking can easily make us forget our problems and bring harmony all over the rooftops.
Sausage, sausage, everywhere.

Well, not exactly. Or at least not for me. My roommate and I decided to have a grill-out on our roof and we each invited all of our friends. This quickly led to my inner-self becoming divided into four chambers of my stomachheart. If you thought I got stressed out about having just one guest over for dinner, imagine 20 guests. I felt divided between:
1)entertaining my friends
2)entertaining my roommate's friends
3)making sure the food was coming along
4)and worrying about paying enough attention to my ongoing Dinner Guest (14 and 15).
Homemade guacamole and bottomless sangria.

I suppose it's not that bad, but when you are the host (or co-host, rather) there is a lot of pressure to make sure all of the above things are mixing and getting along well. There is only so much a host can do, but I feel a responsibility for at least trying to get people to talk to each other because I know that I can't be around to do it all the time. The hardest part is balancing friends and new boyfriends. Admittedly, I am not too good at it. I feel like I either have to ignore my friends (while the boy and I have some private time) or shut the boy out of the conversation because my friends and I go way back and always talk about the same thing: writing.
My first ever strawberry-rhubarb pie. I have craved this for years and finally made the recipe from the classic, Joy of Cooking.

So, by the end of the night, we were all on the roof in the cold, cold, fog, watching the fireworks explode all over the city, and I felt totally uncomfortable and drunk. My friends were on one side chatting, but I wasn't able to say much to them because I was pre-occupied with the boy on the other side who seemed to be in a bad mood and whether I was responsible or not, I definitely felt responsible. He wanted to go downstairs because of the cold and then I ditched my friends entirely. And even the rest of the night with the boy was awkward.
I can't even take the credit for this one. My roommate made this amazing flour-less chocolate cake.

Luckily, there is clean up. I ditched everyone to help my roommate put everything away and wash all the dishes. There is something soothing about cleaning. Not only did I wash away all my anxieties about the day, but I cleaned off all the soot that came off of Mission St. and deposited itself on the furniture, food, dishes, and my body. It may seem impossible, but most things that are divided can be glued back together (maybe sometimes in a different configuration) and washed off.

Stomachheart Eats Pride

2010-06-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Pride is History
As you, dear reader, probably know, this past weekend was Gay Pride in many cities across the country including my little place of residence, San Francisco. I made it a point to go to as many events as I could, from the TransMarch to Dykes on Bikes and even to a performance by the Backstreet Boys on Sunday. This year, the theme was "Fabulous and 40" commemorating the 40th anniversary of the event. This, of course, made me think of history and how Pride has a way of digging up the past and presenting it to you as if it were yesterday. And I don't mean it makes me remember all those queer legends and heroes that came before to make Pride possible.
Necessities: What better to way to brave a very hot and crowded Dolores Park on Pink Saturday than with a cheap bottle of chilled Chardonnay and some reduced fat pita chips. I, of course, brought a classy little cup to keep the festivities green.

The history I'm thinking of is more personal. For me, and I think for many queers in the city, Pride is the inevitable time when you are bound to take the long parade past many of the people that you've hooked up with. Sometimes this city is too small and there are just too many skeletons in the closet (or out of it actually).
By the end of Pride, it felt like I had made dinner for half of the gay men in the city. At the Pink Party, I barely just said "hi" and "happy pride" to Dinner Guest 11, when I ran into and did the same thing all over again with Dinner Guest 2. Literally within 1 minute of each other. Awkward... I wonder what would happen if two of my Dinner Guests met. Would they cancel each other out? Would they join forces and fight me? Would they fall in love?

Then on Pride Sunday, I narrowly escaped an encounter with Dinner Guest 1. I totally dove behind a crowd of shirtless leathermen just, so I didn't have to have another awkward hello and happy pride. And then, of course, the Monday after Pride, I ran into Dinner Guest 12 who actually took the day off as a paid religious holiday (Q: Do you believe in God? A: No, just Gay). Also very awkward because I ran away after 5 minutes. Sometimes it's just too much. Sadly, he actually witnessed the shooting that happened at the Pink Party. I guess there are more important things to worry about then the boys from my past. Hopefully next Pride will not only be fun as it always is, but safe for everyone, too.
My friends totally showed up my meager Pride snacks with lots of delicious offerings from Bi-Rite: beet and sweet potato salad, organic peaches, chocolate mousse, spinach and artichoke dip, and some yummy cheese.

The one dinner guest that I wish I had run into at Pride is Dinner Guest 14. Unfortunately he was out of town and I had to go the whole weekend without even a very proud snuggle.

Dinner 15

2010-06-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

Distractions
It's really hard to cook when you are doing even one of these things:
a) stressing out about job decisions
b) stressing out about how the decisions you make now will affect you in the future
c) stressing out about keeping in touch with friends with busy schedules
d) starting to date someone
It's especially hard to cook when you are doing all of those things. And it's even harder to eat what you've cooked. Even though I am e) all of the above, luckily, I'm not having that problem. I've been cooking every night (but just for myself) and eating heartily. The problem is what follows eating. Stress really fucks up your stomach. My stomach grumbles and sucks in on itself and bloats out to prego point and then flips over and I pretty much want to vom when I think of the life choices I need to make.
A salad with carrots, broccoli, arugala, and jicama. For dressing, we loaded on scoops of TJ's White Bean Hummus.

Fortunately there is d). And d) happens to be Dinner 14's guest. After Vermont, we started hanging out periodically and things have progressed slowly but surely. Usually when I start to date someone, I totally stress about how much they like me, or if they like me at all, or what I should do when they do this, or what I should do when they do that. With Dinner 14, it's different. We only get to see each other about once a week, but when we do, we have a really good time, biking around, giggling like little girls, and eating, of course. There's no pressure because we seem to be on the same, unspoken page.
Paninis with grilled portabella mushrooms, red peppers, onions, and zucchini with goat cheese.

Recently we hung out at Lake Merced and then went to the ocean way out there. It's weird because the road along the ocean is barricaded and sand has blown over a lot of it. It kind of looks like the end of the world, especially when it's deserted and you just walk down the center of the road. But it's nice when you have someone's hand to hold.
Sweet potato fries and a random picture of a dog that Dinner 14 picked up on the street.

After our journey to the end of the world we cooked together, this time at his place. It always makes me nervous to cook in other people's territory, especially this time because his kitchen is really small and he has few utensils and dishes. But somehow we managed okay and even made a lemon cake that came out really weird, because we had to stir it in the same square pan that we baked it in. I guess amid all the chaos in a kitchen or in our lives, we find a way to make do with the things that do make sense.

Stomachheart in Vermont

2010-06-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

Dinner without Desire
For the past two weeks I've been in the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. Johnson, Vermont) doing a writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center. This is a place where you get fed three meals a day, and all you have to do is sit in a beautiful studio overlooking a river and write. My expectations for food and men were high before I arrived. Rumor had it that this place was nicknamed "Divorce Camp" because everyone parties hard and hooks up with each other the whole time.Actually, I did have to do more than just sit in my studio and write. To fund my stay, I received a work study job... in the kitchen. Perfect! I shucked corn, nearly chopped off my finger cutting onions, snapped an endless amount of green beans, and learned cooking secrets from the head chef himself.
And actually I was quite disappointed about the "Divorce Camp" reputation at first. There was not a single boy (out of 50 resident artists) who I was interested in. So much for crazy parties and passionate hook ups.
But I was being really productive and feeling good and happy. I was not even thinking about boys. I realized that life is really different without desire. Boys take up a lot of time. Not just from hanging out with them or texting or whatever, but from just thinking about them. They fill up my head. But here I had nothing to worry about, no one to flirt with, no cell phone reception, so I was completely free to focus on myself and my work. It felt really amazing.
Another reason for my productivity is that three meals of unlimited, delicious food was provided for me daily. Sure, I had to put in a couple hours of food prep here and there, but mostly I just sat down and ate, and then got seconds and ate some more. Not having to constantly cook freed up a lot of time too.
I guess the troubling part is that cutting out two of my favorite things (cooking and boys) made me a way more productive and focused person. What does that mean? Should I give up boys? Should I give up cooking elaborate meals? Should I give up cooking meals for boys? Maybe it was good to have a break for a little while, but what are we without our loves, desires, and vices?

Dinner 14

2010-05-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Leftovers
I knew I was going to be gone for two weeks, so I scheduled two dinners in one week. You may notice that some of the ingredients are very similar to Dinner 13. I tried to switch them up but leftovers are leftovers.
Cabbage salad: It took me forever to get rid of just one cabbage. Here, I added the fruit and the juice of one grapefruit. I mixed the juice with a tablespoon of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of finely chopped ginger.

Even though I wasn't that excited about the food, I was very excited about the guest. I saw him in the observatory tower at the De Young Museum, and I actually asked him to dinner in a little note. He was still a random guy, but at least I wasn't up to the whims of whoever responds to my craigslist ads. This little stomachheart is branching out and trying new things.
Lemon mint salmon and sweet potato surprise: I braised the salmon on a cast iron skillet with salt and pepper, then added fresh mint and baked it in the oven for 15 minutes on 250. Squeeze lemon on it to serve. The surprise: Chop up a sweet potato and whatever other vegetables you want. I used onions, tomatoes, garlic, a jalapeno, and spinach. Saute everything then add the coconut milk and curry powder and chili powder to taste. I added fresh basil at the end and served it over brown rice.

Because I chose my guest, I had high expectations and was nervous that maybe he would think I was a weirdo. But we got along just fine. He's an artist and makes portraits with cross-stitching and black work. He's also apparently a bad cook and manages to bake everything wrong. He does love eating though, and he was really excited about all the items on the menu. The thing that got to me was that there were a lot of long awkward pauses in between topics. This is always a big anxiety when meeting new people, and I usually think that maybe we really don't have much in common and there's no point in hanging out. But then I realized that I shouldn't put that much pressure on it. I just met the guy. Even though it would be great to instantly have good conversation, not everyone is willing to put out (everything) on the first dinner. Sometimes we just have to take our time.Mission Minis: My guest was skeptical when I told him about the project and he wondered what it would be like. Would I force feed him 5 cakes? Just to live up to his fantasies I got a dozen fun-flavored cupcakes from Mission Minis. We ate them all.

The best part about this dinner is that we did take our time. Usually my guests politely give their thanks and head out the door shortly following dessert. But this week's guest didn't seem in any rush to leave. He stayed and we let the conversation take its natural course. Maybe he was into me or maybe not. Maybe I should have made a move or maybe not. I didn't feel any pressure because I hope to see him again. I'll just take my time.

Dinner 13

2010-05-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

Meal of the Mind
Honestly, sometimes these meals are a chore. Listening and talking to a total stranger is a lot of work and not always rewarding. But this week's dinner guest, a soft spoken musicologist and 17th century baroque organ player, gave me valuable insight into the worlds of food, music, and dating.
The other kind of salad: Forget greens when there is beautiful purple. This salad consists of red cabbage, radish, and chopped mint with a spicy peanut sauce (2 tablespoons peanut butter, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, sprinkles of red pepper flakes, half a lime and 1 tablespoon fresh mint leaves; add coconut milk until it is creamy).

Insight #1: The trick to getting children to eat their vegetables. My dinner guest said he was a gullible child. Apparently, his mom used to cut up raw vegetables into tiny pieces and call them candy. He fell for it and has loved all raw vegetables ever since. He actually separated the red cabbage from the radishes in the salad and ate the "radish candy" last.
Ciapu or banana soup: I was reading Louis De Bernieres' The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts this week and it mentioned this Native Latin American dish. My variation follows the post.

Insight #2: The argument against the raw diet. One of my craigslist questions was about what restaurant in the Bay Area you wouldn't go to again. My guest said Cafe Gratitude. I also hate that place. Their whole shtick is creepy and forced. My guest told me it's rumored that the employees are encouraged to go on weird spiritual retreats and that many who have reached management positions have decided they can't do it anymore. My guest also had a good reason for cooking vegetables. He studies how the development of musical instruments directly influences the kind of music that is made. So, the position of the keys on a piano or organ is somewhat responsible for great classical compositions. In the same way, he said that modern civilization began when people started cooking. Cooked vegetables and meat altered our brain chemistry and made modern people. The idea comes from the book, Catching Fire: Cooking Made Human.
Raspberry Basil Pork Chops: I braised two pork chops in a cast iron skillet and then baked for about 15 minutes at 300 with the following glaze. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a pan and add a package of raspberries, 2 tablespoons sugar and dashes of salt. Stir until raspberries fall apart and it thickens. Take off the heat and strain out the seeds. Add two tablespoons of fresh basil.

Insight #3: The problem of dating men in San Francisco. By desert and the third glass of wine, the conversation turned to the toils of love. We both had struggled with dating in the city and this was his explanation. He found it ironic that I had my longest relationship in Madagascar, which seems to be a gay wasteland, but in a city full of gays, I had so far come up with zero. He said that perhaps, because of all the options, no one is ready to take a chance on you, because there might be something better around the corner. In a small town, its easier to settle because of lack of options, but when there are beautiful men everywhere, why not sample them all?
Fruity Crumble: Chop 2 pears and 2 peaches and spread at the bottom of a baking dish. Add some raspberries then top with quick oats, agave sweetener, butter, and cinnamon. Bake for 20 minutes at 300.

Spicy Banana Soup
Ingredients:
2 sliced bananas
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
2 cloves minced garlic
2 kaffir lime leaves
2 tablespoons ginger
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp corinader
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can coconut milk
1 can chicken stock
1 tsp corn starch
dollop of yogurt

Sautee the garlic, onions, and ginger. Add the bananas. Add the coconut milk, stock, and spices, and cook for 20 minutes. Add the corn starch (dissolved in water to prevent lumpiness) and add salt and more spices to taste. Take off heat and serve with a dollop of yogurt.

Stomachheart in Las Vegas

2010-05-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

What Am I Doing Here?
Yes, even stomachhearts love Sin City. Or at least sort of. I was there because my brother (who I barely talk to) had an engagement party. It was the first time that my whole family had been in the same place all together in five years. The perfect setting for potential disaster.Gluttony: Piles of food at the M Resort and Casino Buffet. I still have no idea what M means, but the best part about this particular buffet is that you get all you can drink beer and wine.

Actually, not too much drama with the fam. Just the normal you-get-on-my-nerves-I-can't-stand-you-but-I-love-you jabs and omg-my-parents-are-really-drunk-and-saying-embarrassing-things rolling of the eyes. It's weird that my brother is getting married though. He's the oldest kid, so was always the one getting into trouble and now he has his life together. It's really great for him, but being someone who can't get married, it actually made me kind of jealous. Will I ever be able to get my life together?
Also, I do love Vegas. How could a gay man not? Shopping, glamor, campy stage shows, everyone dressed in drag, and food. The weird thing is that despite the absurd gayness of the place, there seem to be few gay people around. There's only one gay nightclub, Krave, and it was mostly empty on Sunday night, while it's straight counterpart, The Bank at the Bellagio had a line all the way out into the casino. And even on the strip, I only ran into a few queers. What the hell happened to all the gays?
So, obviously, no dinner with boys last week, but I guess that's okay. Having my great, crazy family around was enough of a distraction.

Dinner 12

2010-05-05T18:14:00.001-07:00

And We're Back

It's been a couple weeks since I've made dinner for a guy. Besides the boring reasons like having a ton of deadlines and such, it's been really hard finding a decent date: mostly people over the age of 40 respond to my ad; the young, cute ones who I invite never get back to me; and one guy who I invited got weirded out that I had "FTM Welcome" in my add even though he didn't know what it meant (seriously? how can you be a middle-aged gay man and not know FTM stands for female-to-male? transphobic prick)!

Mango Kale Salad: I massaged olive oil into all of the crevices of the kale leaves and then sprinkled with fresh lemon juice. I added chunks of mango, chopped almonds and dashes of salt and pepper. Perfect summery salad.

I finally convinced a decent-sounding guy to come over and it was such a relief. He showed up cute, stylish, and with a bottle of wine. I mostly invited him because he said he didn't have a kitchen. This seemed soooo sad to me since my life revolves around cooking food. It turned out he had sort of lied. He does have a kitchen, but it doesn't function at all. The water doesn't run and the gas stove doesn't work. This is almost sadder. It's like a tease.

Quinoa Lentil Cakes: I fully cooked 1 cup of lentils and half a cup of quinoa. Then I mashed them together with a blunt object (a mortar or is it a pestle?) and added fresh cilantro, one egg, and a variety of spices. You can use whatever you like. I used garlic powder, chili powder, thyme and cumin. Then I made patties and fried until brown.

The kitchen was just the first of many complicated food issues of my guest. Since he doesn't cook he eats out a lot and considers himself a food snob even though he has no hand in making it. He blames this lack of cooking skills and need for good food from having grown up in Bakersfield, CA. Apparently it's the Texas of Cali and voted every year as the worst area in the country. You can't buy a single organic or fresh vegetable anywhere (even though the city apparently supplies carrots to the world). He grew up on food either out of a can or from a box and because of that he was a fat kid. He's still haunted by that phantom and works out like crazy to stay in shape.

Chicken Mushroom Stuffed Peppers: I cut one yellow and one green bell pepper in half and stuffed in a mixture of cubed chicken breast, yellow onion, baby portabella mushrooms and goat cheese with sprinkles of salt and pepper. I baked it at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes.

Despite the interesting food talk, I was intimidated. This was a real-life hipster in my kitchen: asymmetrical haircut, septum ring, cute sweater shirt, and fancy ankle boots. He talked about politics and critical theory and brought up Alice Waters whom he assumed I would know because she started the whole organic, home-grown, foodie movement in the Bay Area. He also said: "It's not a scene unless you're seen." I felt a bit over my head. I'm so not that cool, even though I've had asymmetrical haircuts and a septum ring in the past. Oh, and, of course, I own fancy ankle boots. What gay man in the city doesn't? Luckily, he wasn't pretentious as many hipsters are, and he didn't seem to mind my having not ever gone to some of his favorite bars and restaurants.

Apple Plantain Heaven: I fried 2 ripe plantains and a green apple with butter and cinnamon. Then I melted white chocolate and a slice of butter in a double boiler until smooth. I drizzled it on top: soooo yummy.

Overall the dinner was fun and funny, and we got along well. But considering my last dinner I was unwilling to even assume that my guest was at all interested in me. He excused himself when I offered another glass of wine (bad sign), but then he gave me a really nice hug as he left (good sign), and said I should facebook friend him (friend sign?). Such confusing signals or maybe not even signals at all. Doing these dinners has made me terribly aware and suspicious of any words or body language. Even though I can feel out flavors in the kitchen and intuit what strange ingredients will combine well, how can we ever know what another person desires? I'm tired of putting myself out there and getting rejected. I wish someone would figure out my desires and just feed them to me.

Dinner 11

2010-04-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

Revising
I've gotten two bits of helpful feedback on this blog: a. include original recipes b. have more of a story. This week I attempted both of those things.

So, here is the back story for this week's dinner guest: Boy meets boy. Boys have several subdued dates. Boy can't figure out if other boy likes him or not. Boy awkwardly asks other boy and receives a confirmation, but then other boy is completely unavailable to hang out again. Boys stop talking to each other.
This was my dinner guest's favorite dish: Chickpea and Artichoke Salad. I used one can of chickpeas and one can of artichoke hearts then added Kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, dried cranberries, and goat cheese. Sprinkled with olive oil and Balsamic vinegar.

That back story was over a year ago and the boy was me and the other boy was my dinner guest. We started running into each other again, so I invited him. As was his usual style he agreed, but on the day of, postponed. He came the next day, but was totally late.

Narratives
Despite all the check minuses my guest had accumulated by the time he arrived, he was much more comfortable and conversational than in the past. Before, we almost exclusively talked about school (he studies architecture), but now he shared a lot about his life. He told me about his crazy weekend: an awkward blind date with a guy who "accidentally" missed the BART and had to spend the night even though my guest wasn't into him (if we're trying to make this blog a story, think of this element as foreshadowing), a dinner party with his cousin and a group of handsome older gays, bar hopping, a Vicodin trip, and an all day walk across the city. My guest took one bite of this Coconut Split Pea Soup and then rejected it (again, foreshadowing). Recipe follows blog entry.

We lapsed back into shop talk, but we found common ground through one of my favorite (and his) mediums: the music video. He was interested in the architectural and digital space of videos from directors like Sam Brown, while I was interested in the problem of limited narratives in all media and how the music video also has this problem but in some cases may disrupt it. I proposed this idea: there are only like three kinds of narrative in the world that are repeated over and over (ex: the hero's journey, a stranger comes to town, etc.) and that these limited amounts of narratives are why the world is falling apart (environment, politics, culture, you name it). The discussion went in many directions and we decided we should watch music videos in order to support our ideas with evidence. Greyhound Talapia with Spicy Couscous. My guest said he liked the fish (I thought it was kind of weird), but he put the salad on top in order to choke it down, so he couldn't have liked it that much. Recipe follows.

We spent a long time watching music videos, drinking wine, and chatting about narratives in my room. We tried to figure out if certain videos disrupted narrative or enhanced the narratives of songs. Or if the director imposed her own narrative on the song or what about videos that had no narrative at all? For dessert, I baked sweet potato wedges with cinnamon and brown sugar, topped them with frozen yogurt and drizzled them with my roommate's leftover raspberry sauce.

Attack of the CrotchBrain

So, there we were, sitting on my bed having a great conversation. And then I kissed my guest. And at first it was fine, he kissed back. But, he pulled away and made some vague excuse about being tipsy and needing to get home. Unfortunately, his bus didn't come for another 30 minutes, so we awkwardly chatted until he left.

The disappointing part of the whole ordeal is not the embarrassment of making a move and getting rejected (believe me, I'm used to rejection), but the fact that I made a move in the first place. That is not the point of this project. But somehow, my secret crotchbrain snuck up on me and helped me position my guest in such a way (wine, music, my room) that the move could be made. Where did my stomachheart go? Why did I try to force a narrative (the narrative of the two boys meeting and drifting off into the sunset)? Just like some music videos, a dinner can happen without some predictable outcome; it can just be a series of bites and ideas and songs. Despite the fact that there are limited kinds of narratives in books, movies, etc. doesn't mean that people are narratives. And we don't have to follow them. I'll try to stop following my crotchbrain and get back to my stomachheart.

Coconut Split Pea Soup

2 cups of dry split peas (I used half green and half yellow)

1 yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons oil

2 carrots

1 bay leaf

2 kaffir lime leaves

1 vanilla bean

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon basil

1 chicken bouillon

salt and pepper to taste

1 can of coconut milk

6 cups water

Sautee the onions and garlic in oil. Add the split peas and 6 cups of water. Add the spices, bouillon, and carrots. Cook for 30 minutes until peas are soft and little liquid is left. Add the coconut milk and simmer for 10 more minutes.

Greyhound Talapia

4 Talapia fillets

Juice of 1 Grapefruit

2 tablespoons vodka

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons dry basil

Combine the grapefruit juice, vodka, oil and basil. Pour over the Talapia and marinade for at least 3 hours. Place talapia and the rest of the marinade in a baking dish and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. I added mushrooms and served it with quinoa with sprinkles of tumeric, cumin, and cayenne.

Dinner 10

2010-03-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Anniversary
I've been doing this blog for 10 weeks so I decided to switch it up. As a reward to myself, I let my date turn the tables. I became the guest and he was the host.
If my host was an animal, he would be spunky and cute like this little guy.

I caught this week's date staring at me at a queer dance party. I had to leave with my friends so I told him to look at missed connections the next day. He replied right away with two apologies:

A. He was taken aback when I was so forward and introduced myself, so he was awkward.
B. He had a boyfriend... but he still wanted to hang out.

Well, I'd heard that story before, but I invited him to dinner anyway. Surprisingly, he said I should take a break and he would cook for me. It's about time!

Company
Anniversaries are best celebrated in groups. Even big anniversaries for couples are more fun when their friends are present. This anniversary was no different. I arrived at an old Victorian full of cool, interesting people who immediately took me in. My host lives in a collective-like house where they share groceries, meals, and space comfortably and fluidly. While my host cooked and chatted with me, one person made ice cream, yogurt and granola, another read heavy philosophy, one played with the cat, one broke a measuring cup, and another swept it up.

My host pretended like he didn't know what he was cooking, but when we all settled down to eat, the meal was delicious. We had miso soup, brown rice with stir fried greens and ground beef, and just for the two of us (not the rest of the roommates) there was Japanese-style barbecued steak.

Not actual photos of the food. But it looked very similar... actually, better.

Host vs. Guest

Dinner was enjoyable and conversation was lively, but I found myself feeling out of place. They shared stories about ghosts in the house and I had ghost stories of my own, but I didn't feel like they applied. My host told me about planting an olive tree with his medicine group that day, but I couldn't think of one thing I had done in the past 12 hours. We just weren't each others style. They had great, creative energy but it didn't stimulate mine (and mine didn't contribute to theirs). I had even brought TJ's gluten-free brownies for dessert, but completely forgot about it sitting in my bag. I don't know the chemistry behind the mixture of flavors; why some things taste great together and others are disgusting. People work the same way, but it's unexplainable. Perfectly nice and interesting people can be of no interest to me and vice-versa.

My host and I agreed on one thing: we hated being served. I tried to help cook and clean up, but I repeatedly got in the way. When he filled a glass of water for me to drink, I felt awkward standing right next to him. I could do it myself. I realized that I am the cook and I like to give to people. Even though the idea of someone making dinner for me sounded great, I am most comfortable when I am on my own turf and play by my rules.

Dinner 9

2010-03-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

You Get What You Put Into It
Much like his quirky attitude in e-mails, my dinner guest this week showed up snappily dressed. He had on dress shoes, white shirt and pants, a black vest, and a bright red tie. He spoke with a charming Australian accent, but the things he said were not charming.

I asked my guest for one food that he liked and one he disliked. I incorporated both into the menu. He likes olives. I made a simple garden salad with cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, almonds and cranberries. The dressing included olive tapenade with olive oil and balsamic.

Although funny and easy enough to talk to, my dinner guest considered himself a little bit of all of the holy trinity of awkward types of people: a dork, a nerd, and a geek. I swore to distance myself from torturous interactions with these people after going to a big engineering school for undergrad. But here I was again: in for the long haul. And although I was entertained, by the end I was more exhausted from the conversation than by the intense meal I had just cooked up.

Ugly Combinations My guest disliked asparagus. To hide it, I made mashed potatoes (with purple and red potatoes) and mixed in pureed asparagus. I also added tons of garlic and butter to hide the taste. It looks sort of disgusting though.

I learned a lot about various conventions: Dr. Who Conventions (“full of fat gays”), Star Trek Conventions (“full of fat straight people with two kids”) and Furry Conventions. He spilled on the latter, when I asked him where he had met most of his friends. He told me that one day he was like, “Hmm. Where could I meet a bunch of interesting, weird people? A Furry Convention of course!” So, he met furries on-line and now he lives with a bunch. There is furry porn all over the walls of his apartment and he brings over people he wants to freak out or scare off. Interestingly enough, he’s not interested in furries sexually and has never hooked up with someone in an animal suit. Probably one of my favorite dishes from this project: Spicy Tuna with Mango Salsa.

He ate slowly because he said he enjoyed the food so much (even though he only took a small spoon of mashed potatoes). In exchange for gulping down my own food (I still haven’t learned any manners) I had to field many questions about obscure things I knew nothing about. For example: “Do you know the origin of winkle toes?” I had no idea what a winkle toes even was. Well, obviously it’s the name for those spiral-toed shoes that elves might wear and the name comes from the object that extracts a winkle from its home (I didn’t know what a winkle was either; it’s a sea creature with a shell like a snail). I also learned about a lot of random, little-known musicians whose names I can’t remember. He said he likes music that's interesting, not necessarily good. I guess I’m glad I can’t remember the names.For dessert: vanilla frozen yogurt with strawberries and a balsamic vinegar reduction. It came out a little thick and solidified when it hit the ice cream. I still can’t get it right.

Blackbirds

He did ask me one question to which I knew the answer. “What’s with the four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie? Can you even fit that many?” I had researched a lot about the history of cookbooks and I learned about an Italian cookbook from the 16th century that has a recipe "to make pies so that birds may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up." The nursery rhyme was actually based on a recipe. I guess I’ll admit it. I can be a nerd, too. At least when it comes to food.

Dinner Guest 9

2010-03-21T01:59:00.000-07:00

So, now that the interlude with only one man for three weeks is over, a new dinner guest will be here. I actually chose him several weeks ago, but my other dinner guest postponed his appearance. Here are the craigslist questions I asked and his answers:

1. What snacks would you bring on a picnic?
A Roman feast - wine, dates and pistachios. Cheese would also be a right answer, maybe figs too.

2. If your lover served you a terrible meal, what would you do?
Depends if he's having a bad day or it's par for the course. If it's a bad day, politeness and encouragement never go astray. But I confess I used to go out with someone and after he burnt pancakes, ruined porridge and failed at pasta I couldn't help but poke a bit of fun.

3. Where is your favorite place to do grocery shopping?
There's a rather trendy independent supermarket near where I live that sells a lot of fancy produce and real bread. I mean, *real bread* which I can't get at the Mexican supermarket or Safeway. The trendy place is expensive, though, and only for special occasions like birthdays and funerals.

If you're interested in having me over, I'd really appreciate, if I may, your answers to three questions of my own choosing:

1. You have a very complicated machine which does nothing. Which would you prefer - keeping it a secret even though you can't do anything with it, or telling people about it and at least making some conversation out of it?

2. What piece of music do you want played at your funeral?

3. If you could ask any figure in history the questions you asked me, who would it be?

Honestly, I mostly chose him because he actually was bold enough to ask questions of his own. Hmm... good idea/bad idea?

Dinner 8

2010-03-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

As a kid, my grandfather used to say, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach," when I put too much food on my plate and couldn't eat it. We always want more than we can handle. Or we want something because it looks good, even though we don't really know what it will be like.

A boring salad. I made the dressing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, mustard, salt, pepper. You can add oranges and pecans for something a bit more exciting.

The same dinner guest from the last two weeks came again for this week's dinner. But things had changed. I hadn't seen him since last week and he was vague about his whereabouts. He almost didn't come because he had to go to the gym and it was very late by the time he arrived. He still said sweet things like he always said. He said he liked me and missed me. When I suggested we start making dinner, he said, "You are my dinner and my breakfast and my lunch and dessert (cheesy, I know)."

But I felt myself getting cold. If he liked me that much why could he barely hang out with me? Why was going to the gym more important? I couldn't return kind phrases and dinner came out plain and intentionally unispired. Everything was different this week. I tried going gluten-free for a while. I made rice pasta and a chicken tomato sauce that was a little bit of leftover Trader' Joes marinara sauce with some chopped tomatoes, onions, green pepper, and mushrooms.

I knew the parameters of our relationship when we first met. He would be leaving in a month and he was closeted so had to keep his life comparmentalized. I saw what I was getting into and I thought I would be okay with it. And admittedly, I was blinded by how attractive and sexy he was.

But the actual taste of the situation doesn't work for me. I have different needs that he can't provide. There's no point in tormenting myself over something that doesn't fit my stomachheart. In this case it isn't so much that my eyes are bigger than my stomach, but maybe my stomachheart can't survive on sight alone. We all need something that we can hold onto and take our time to digest and enjoy. So next week, an all new dinner guest!

Dinner 7

2010-03-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

Breaking the Rules
Some people believe that if you don't follow a recipe correctly, the product will end up a disaster. Or at the very least, a disappointment. Others reference recipes in order to adapt them. Really good cooks and bakers know what measurements to alter and what ingredients to add or omit to make something new and unique.

This German Potato Salad is from the classic Joy of Cooking. I used purple potatoes and turkey bacon for a colorful, healthier, and Muslim-friendly twist.

When I told my friends who this week's dinner guest was, half of them said I was breaking my own rules. My guest was also last week's guest. Wasn't I supposed to be meeting someone new every week? Wasn't I supposed to find a random person on craigslist? The other half nodded and said, "Well, wasn't that your goal in the first place?" Whatever the case, the basic rules haven't changed: a meal and a man on Monday. And that's what happened.

Effort
So, last week's dinner guest came again. Just like last week, we cooked together and debated over the best ways to do things. He thought we should have boiled the asparagus rather than baking it and he was convinced the chicken was undercooked. The meal came out well, though and visually, it was beautiful.

We stuffed chicken with mushrooms, spinach, and feta. We baked white asparagus with red peppers, garlic, and rosemary.

I had still posted a craigslist ad that week and I asked him one of my questions: If a lover cooked a really terrible meal for you, what would you do? He said that depending on the vibe of the relationship, he would tell the lover that it wasn't that good, but maybe he would wait until the next day. He thought it would suck if they spent a long time making a meal, and he took one bite and said it was terrible. He also told me that the night before he had gone to his friend's house for a big Middle Eastern meal. The friend usually cooked for 4 or 5 people, but there were 12 this time. The friend burned the rice and the meal was finished really late. My guest said they tried to eat the rice anyway, but it was so bad. They told the friend straight up that it was terrible. Sometimes you just have to be honest no matter what the relationship.

He also told me this story: A couple had been married many years and everyday the wife cooked dinner for her husband. She was a good cook, but one day she messed up the meal and it was disgusting. She had nothing else to serve at the table, so the husband had to eat the meal anyway. She was afraid he would be angry. He wasn't though. He said he was actually happy because the bad meal reminded him of their first year of marriage. At that point she couldn't cook very well, but they were happy and in love.

My dinner guest took this picture.

Adaptability

Over dishes (side by side again), my dinner guest and I talked a lot about water. He kept asking my roommates and I about filtering water. In Kuwait, he never drank water from the tap and in fact he barely drank water at all. He drinks it a lot more here and is fascinated that people drink tap water. He still filters it. We both observed that people that live in hot climates have somehow adapted to conserve water, so they don't have to drink it that much. When they do, they have special ways of purifying it. In Kuwait they pour water into a long-necked ceramic jug and place it in the sun. The heat forces water through the clay and the jar sweats. People gather the water and drink it because after its journey through the jug, it has become pure. I told him that in Madagascar (I lived there a couple years) people eat rice three times a day. After cooking rice, they pour water into the pot with the burnt rice and let it boil over the fire. This is practically the only water they drink all day, hot burnt rice water.

My dinner guest and I disagreed about a lot of things. We come from different cultures and different religious backgrounds and have conflicting points of view. But just as I adapted this project according to the kind of responses I got and the men I met, we adapted to each other. We debated our ideas, learned new perspectives and yet rejected things that we couldn't accept. Despite our differences, like drinking water, we learn the best way to take each other in.

Dinner 6

2010-03-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

Critical Chef
When I cook, I am my hardest critic. I should have added more pepper or less salt. Something is always missing. I doubt that things will turn out right. And this craigslist experiment has made me the same way with men. I don't have high expectations because people don't respond to my invites or they just stand me up.
This simple, fresh cucumber-avocado bisque recipe and other cold soups can be found here.

But sometimes men surprise me, just like unusual recipes. I met Week 6's Dinner Guest differently than the rest. We saw each other at the Valentine's Day pillow fight downtown and he missed-connected me on craigslist. We hung out one time before this dinner and things went well, so I invited him.

Sous-Chef
Although my dinner guest was late, he made up for it. He immediately started to help me cook, fitting into the kitchen and my rhythm perfectly. He diced onions and garlic, while I browned the turkey. He added the other vegetables, while I prepared the sweet potatoes. And we joked and debated the whole time about what ingredients to throw on the skillet first. He wasn't just my assistant, but a co-chef.

My friend told me about this Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie at Gluten-Free Goddess.

During dinner my guest told me about his life back home in Kuwait. It's common there to have a cook, so he didn't learn to cook until he came to the states for school four years ago. The first time he tried to cook some canned tuna, he let the oil get too hot. When he added the tuna, it exploded into flame and he just waited for it stop. Then he ate the food anyway. He did claim that his mom was the best cook ever and I told him that every son says that about his mom. He swore that his friends agreed though.

He also told me that he had killed sheep and camels for meals. He once tried to cut off the horns of a sheep, which are really tough, but he accidentally cracked the skull so that they couldn't eat the head (which he said is really delicious). He said that camels were the hardest to kill because you had to stab them directly in the heart, otherwise they would thrash around and kill you. Camels have really good memories and if you are mean to them, they will remember you even after many years. The next time they see you, they will jump on you and crush you. Lesson: be nice to camels even if they spit.
This shockingly yummy, but unfortunately fatty flan can be found here.

I asked him about Kuwaiti literature and he said that there wasn't too much, but that Kuwait is one of the most informed countries in the world. Everyone reads the newspaper and once a week they all gather together and talk about the recent news stories and update those that didn't hear about something. They play music at these gatherings and he showed me some of his favorite traditional songs on youtube. He even pointed out some of the male musician's boyfriends in the video clips. Although my guest is closeted to his Arab friends, certain forms of homosexuality occur in his culture. Young boys experiment with each other and a man is still considered 'straight' if he tops. It's complicated, but what about sexuality isn't?

Dishwasher
Dishwashers may not be the best paid people on the planet, but I felt rich and full because after dessert, my guest and I washed everything side by side. His ideas about sex might be complicated, but this action was simple. It was like we had been doing weekly dinner's for many years. Maybe we skipped a few steps because he will go back home in a month. But maybe we're just a recipe that's quick and easy to make, and tasty too. Or maybe I found a stomach-heart.

Week 6 Questions

2010-02-25T17:53:00.000-08:00

Here are the questions of the week with my answers. Add your own answers in the comments section!

1. What is your favorite sweet treat?

I'm not the biggest fan of sweets, but I have recently become obsessed with marscapone cheese. It's just a little bit sweet and goes great on French toast with homemade strawberry jam.

2. How much would you have to get paid to eat something gross like buffalo testicles?

I would pretty much try eating anything, as long as someone else paid for it. I don't want to waste money on something that I might puke up.

3. What would be your last meal before dying?

I don't think I'd care what it was or my idea of the best last supper might change according to my mood. My only wish is that I would be allowed the use of a stocked kitchen in order to make it myself.

And here is the menu for Week 6:

Pumpkin Soup
Broccoli Medley (basically I don't know what to do with it at the moment, I'll come up with something when the time comes)
Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie
Flan

Dinner 5

2010-02-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

Familiar Flavors
This was probably the first dinner that I wasn't nervous. Maybe it's because I'm getting used to welcoming perfect strangers into my home or maybe it's because this week's dinner guest seemed almost like a long-lost friend. It's like eating a favorite dish after not having it for a long time: familiar and comfortable.
This salad can be made in a pinch. I used cucumbers, mini-heirloom tomatoes, green onions and feta. And I made a simple dressing from three tablespoons olive oil, juice of half a lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. Served on cute dishes my sister gave me from CB2.

My dinner guest and I immediately began swapping our cooking stories and adventures. He's a freelance graphic designer, but work is trickling to a stop, so he has a lot of time on his hands. He spends it cooking and gardening and making yogurt (as well as looking for a new outdoors-y profession: he took fireman classes, got EMT licensing, scuba diving licensing, and stared skiing again). Last year, he grew lots of different vegetables, including tons of lettuce, which he didn't know what to do with, so whenever he visited a friend, he arrived with a dirty head of lettuce. Later, he found out that there is a ton of lead in the soil where he lives in Oakland. This year, he and his roommate built a garden box.
This easy yet tasty Indonesian Ginger Chicken Recipe comes from the Barefoot Contessa. I served it with coconut rice. My dinner guest told me it could use some broccoli. True.

Animal City
He told me weird stories about farming in the city. Several years ago his roommate came home and said he saw a turkey strutting down the street of West Oakland. And a few months later, another roommate who worked at Eccolo in Berkeley (a fancy restaurant that tries to serve food that comes from a 30 mile radius) came home really excited about a woman who had worked out a deal with the restaurant to supply rabbits and half a pig that she had raised in the city. Only years later did my guest figure out that this was all connected. He read the book Farm City by Novella Carpenter, who lived only a few blocks from him at that time. She raised chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits and even two pigs right there in the city. She was the one who exchanged half her pig in order to learn how to make cured meats from the head chef of the restaurant. Small city, big pigs.
My dinner guest brought this homemade yogurt, which he mixed with lemon curd and locally produced honey.

My guest told me about the brilliant strategy of his honey supplier. Not only does the man have numerous hives and a shop where he sells lots of varieties of honey and other things made from it like candles, but he is also the only hive removal service in Northern California. The bee man goes out and collects swarming hives that terrorize homes or neighborhoods, and then he keeps them in order to produce even more honey, which he then sells in his shop.

Manners

Throughout my dinners, I carefully observe the eating habits and movements of my guests in relationship to me and my kitchen. Mostly, they stand about awkwardly and end up not being of much use. Even though this dinner guest was unsure of himself at first, he quickly made himself at home in small ways. He was the only guest so far to take off his shoes, he got more wine out of the fridge without having to ask, he helped himself to seconds before I even offered, and he demanded many spoons while making desert. None of these things are a big deal, but I appreciated them. It made serving a perfect stranger less straining or stressful, and it gave me the chance to relax and just make a friend. And even better yet, he offered to make dinner for me next time. Manners aren't about being proper or polite, but about understanding someone and fitting into the pattern of a friendship.

The Opposite of Stomach-Heart?

2010-02-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

I realized that I had to come up with a term to describe the opposite of the stomach-heart. After some minimal discussion with friends, we decided on the obvious: crotch-brain. I then realized that this word is not a combination of the two parts of the body, but that the first replaces the second. I wondered if this is the same as the stomach-heart. Perhaps we're not a combination of stomach and heart, but we have a stomach instead of a heart: we love with our stomachs. Is this a good or a bad thing? And what is to be done about it?

Regardless, you may remember my dinner date for this week, week 5. Remember that bonus story about the goat yogurt, that guy who was the runner-up to the boy-with-a-boyfriend-who-canceled-last-minute, that I guy I should have invited in the first place? Well yes, he is Dinner Guest 5.

And here is the menu:
Green Bean Salad
Ginger Chicken
Coconut Rice
Desert by Dinner Guest 5 (maybe homemade yogurt!)

Dinner 4

2010-02-16T20:36:00.001-08:00

Better with Age?
Most foods are perishable. Fruits and vegetables rot after a week and leftovers rapidly become left in the trash as the days go by. Even canned foods implode or grow black fungus after ten years. But then there are cheeses that become riper and tastier as they age. And wine or rum which peak after an extended number of years. Or that Chinese delicacy, that egg that gets buried in the ground for 50 years. Different foods get better over time. We must determine which ones.

This creamy potato leek soup recipe is at Pinch My Salt.

I bring up the aging of food because I wonder if the same rules apply to people. My dinner guest for the evening is old. Not just older, but old. 59 (almost 60) years old to be exact. At first, I was worried about me, my safety: he might be a creep or try to do something to me. He might be rotten produce. But as the evening wore on I realized I should be more worried about his safety rather than mine.

Take Your Time
From the moment he walked in until the moment he left, my dinner guest barely paused as he told me his entire life story. This proved to be a problem because it's difficult to eat while chattering away. My guest ate soooo slowly. And I ate rather quickly. Even while restraining myself, I had already finished my soup by the time he took one bite. But I had already learned so much about him. He is a natural healer. He uses techniques like acupuncture, herbal medicines and twelve others I had never heard of to heal chronic conditions and athletic injuries. His voice was low and raspy and kept fading out as he periodically convulsed into burps and hiccups. He apologized and said that he should take a hydrochloric acid pill. He explained that most people that have stomach pains after eating or heart burn are not actually suffering from an acid surplus but rather an acid deficiency. When even a little bit of acid is introduced from food, it causes pain, but this can be equalized by taking HCL pills. Hmmm...I doubt it would cure the lack of a stomach-heart, though (see Dinner 3).

I baked this talapia with pesto, and added spinach, mushrooms, red pepper, and white onion to the quinoa and topped it with Trader Joe's cilantro dressing.

Go On

Nearly an hour had passed and we hadn't even moved on to the main course. I was starving. Desperate. Finally my guest finished his soup and we started on the salad and fish. It was cold of course. He said he didn't mind cold food. I suppose he better not because with the way he ate, everything would be cold by the time it reached his mouth.

But now we got to his love life. Epic. He eloped when he was in college because his father wouldn't support him if he married. He hid it from his father the rest of his life. My guest's wife died during child birth but his son lived. He decided he couldn't support the child at the time so the boy's god parents adopted him, telling him that his father had died in a car accident. My guest periodically spied on his son: he watched him with binoculars at sports games and sat at the table next to him at restaurants. The boy grew up, got married, had a kid and then sadly, all three died in a car accident.

And on...

But that was only the first love of his life. There were five. I'll skip a few and get to the fifth. He had an affair with this woman for fifteen years, during three of her marriages! During her first marriage, she flirted with him and one night they were making dinner and were going to go out dancing. She cut her finger badly while making chili rellenos and bled everywhere even though she ignored it. My guest finally convinced her to go get stitches and he figure the night was over, but they came home, finished the meal, still went out dancing, and then slept together for the first time. The husband was out of town. All of her other men knew about my guest. Their relationship was accepted, and in some cases even encouraged. It ended when she finally settled down with the former gay lover of a count.

Plantains fried in butter and cinnamon and served with tapioca.

And On

We went into the kitchen to get desert. He seriously almost fell over when he stumbled around and almost bumped into the refrigerator. I was definitely concerned about the old guy. He wasn't drunk though, he has chronic fatigue syndrome and all the sitting had destabilized him.

He got himself together and talked while I fried up our desert and we finally got to his relationship with men. He'd had periodic fuck buddies throughout his life but had never really had a male lover. The closest it came was this much younger man that lived with him for five years. The guy had a personality disorder, couldn't hold down a job, and had been homeless for a long time. My guest took him in and helped to stabilize him. They developed a daddy-boy relationship that was non-sexual but loving.

The minute the last bite of desert disappeared, I immediately started making my good-byes. He was a nice guy, but I could not take anymore listening. As much as I love stories, I had zoned out several times and was yawning inconspicuously every few minutes. Dinner was over and it was time to go (very slowly, of course).Thoughts Over Dirty Dishes

Maybe it's not how old something is, but the combinations. A perfectly aged wine will go great with fresh caught fish, but an old healer did not mix too well with little, stomach-heart me. It's unfortunate that I can't seem to find the right combination: last week's no-show, young sex fiend or this weeks much older, compassionate cuddler (what else could he have done with his non-sexual house boy of five years?). Neither one is even remotely appetizing. Luckily, there are many more recipes I want to try and many more dinners with people to meet.

Week 4 Questions

2010-02-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

Here are the questions of the week! And the answers from Week 4's dinner guest:

1. If you could only eat one thing every day the rest of your life, what would it be?
If I were restricted to one thing to eat at every meal for the rest of my life it would be grain: Quinoa, millet, or rice.

2. What is a family dish or speciality that has been passed on to you?
I have several family dishes that have been passed on to me. The one I favor is Ukrainian Mushroom Christmas Borscht (though I must admit eggplant faisinjian or apricot-almond tangine run close seconds).

3. What is the nicest meal you've made for someone else?
Of the many meals I have made for other people, the nicest is probably a simple breakfast: fresh ground and brewed coffee, gruel with date pieces/ dried cranberries/ allspice/ cardamom/ vanilla yogurt/ stevia, and to top it off Brazilian avocado cream with extra lime. A good breakfast can make your day.

And the menu:

Quinoa Salad
Potato Leek Soup
Tuna Steaks
Fried Plantains

Dinner 3

2010-02-08T23:49:00.001-08:00

Preparation:

When we cook, we know what we get. If we follow the recipe just right, we end up with delicious food. I spent the afternoon following the delicate instructions to make chocolate mousse. I had to beat and stir each element separately, and make sure the chocolate was just above room temperature before I added the egg yolks, and fold in the egg whites at precise increments. It was a difficult task, but I knew that in several hours the mousse would set and my dinner guest and I would have a delicious desert.

Here is the tricky recipe for this delicious mousse.

People are not as easy or predictable. I'm very precise about my craigslist dinner invitations. I make sure each guest's responses are sincere and thoughtful, and I use polite but direct language when I answer their e-mails. But this week, I had all the ingredients and made half the food when I took a break and checked my e-mail. My dinner guest had e-mailed me and I thought perhaps it was a last minute question. This is what he said:

About tonight, I was talking to my boyfriend (news to me!) about it and he isn't entirely comfortable with the idea. Sex is not as big a deal for him, but this sounds too much like a date. I don't know what exactly was on the menu for tonight, but I feel I need to respect his wishes. Sorry to cancel last minute like this, I honestly thought he would be okay with it or I wouldn't have responded in the first place. It's a cool idea, and I hope someone takes you up on it. Too bad I'm not that guy.

People are unpredictable, they don't rise at certain temperatures and their flavor doesn't come out when simmered over low heat. Despite my preparations, I was left exactly the way I had hoped that this project would not leave me: alone.

Repairs:

But the food had been made and my hands were already stained with beet juice. This dinner would still happen and all the cute boys with boyfriends would not stop me. So, I called in the cavalry: one of my best friends and fellow writers. I tweaked the menu a little because she has a gluten allergy, but we made the most of the dinner. You can make this raw dish by processing a cup of almonds and adding juice from half a lemon and some water until it's creamy. Then mix with cucumber, chopped dill and one garlic clove.

My friend is always there for me and luckily she's funny and cute (way cuter than my craigslist pick), so she was able to get me out of my funk with some jokes and funny stories. She is also an avid cook, but approaches food and cooking differently than I do, so her feedback and suggestions about my food was valuable.I made this simple beet salad by microwaving the beets for just 1 minute. Then I marinated them in two tablespoons of oil, two tablespoons of vinegar, a splash of sherry, a half tablespoon of sugar, a few shakes of rosemary, dashes of salt and pepper, and some green onions.

Of course, I made my friend answer the questions of the week. She said that the most intense vegetable was rhubarb and her guilty pleasure (I had to clarify that I meant food because she raised her eyebrow in a naughty way) was unsweetened carob chips. She could eat a whole bag in one sitting. Because my friend has a gluten allergy, I made a gluten-free version of the alfredo sauce and just dumped it over polenta instead of pasta. Weird, but still good.

My guest had two cooking disasters to share with me:

1. "I woke up early, about 7 in the morning and was really hungry. I went to the kitchen and started to make breakfast. I was going to have an omelet. It wasn't until the egg carton caught on fire and the kitchen was smoking that I realized I was still drunk from the night before."

2. "During the holidays my father likes to make really elaborate dishes and I sometimes help him. When I was a teenager, I was making some kind of cookies or something and I was looking at the recipe and it said 'mix by hand.' I thought it was kind of weird so I asked my dad, "Do I really mix it by hand? Doesn't that seem weird?" Without looking at me he just said yeah. The next time he turns around, he sees that I have my hands actually in the bowl with the egg yolks running all over and I'm caked in dough. He said that was one of my truly blond moments and my family tells that story at every holiday."

The rest of the dinner, we complained about boys and ate really huge wine glasses full of chocolate mousse.

The Stomach-Heart Revolution:

This week's fiasco and bitter disappointment led me to believe that something has to change with the dating and relationship scene. All the cool kids are into open relationships and casual sex and fucking you even though they have a boyfriend, but I can't find ONE decent man to just have dinner with me! I understand the queerness of alternative relationship structures and the argument that monogamous couples come from some sort of heternormative legacy, but I can't physically, mentally, or emotionally be one of those cool kids. Sometimes cool kids take things too far and they don't know what they're doing anymore. Where are their stomachs? Where are their hearts?

So, instead of letting it be cool, we should put our foot down. No more being nice to idiots who are fucking with us. No more being understanding of someone who's not being honest or stringing us along. We have little stomach-hearts and we need to use them. A stomach-heart is that earnest part of us that reacts with feelings, that can't help but fall for people when we are intimate with them, that tries to find the best in people even when there isn't any excuse for them, that is hungry for affection, that loves to love.

Next time we encounter an idiot, there will be no forgiveness. Tell them that casual sex is out, cheating is so not cool. Feelings are in. Cuddling is in. Waking up next to someone the morning after and then eating breakfast with them is hot. Calling people back or texting without evasiveness is cool. Curling up and reading a book out loud to a lover is our idea of perfection. Cooking dinner for a boyfriend and talking for hours while eating is what everyone's doing. Get with it.

Stomach-hearts out there: we are the future.

And a tiny little epilogue:

So, to bring my cooking metaphor full circle: Although lovers and relationships don't work like recipes, friends are like Betty Crocker cake mix. You barely do anything. Just add oil and eggs and throw it in the oven, but it works out every time. Light and fluffy and sweet. Friends are always there for you and it just works without asking questions. I mean, sure you have to bake them a (gluten-free!) cake once in a while, but once friendships are made, once you figure each other out, they are like bottomless pits of stomach-heart. Thank you, friend.

Week 3 Dinner Guest

2010-02-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

Here are the answers of this week's dinner guest plus his prologue:

Before we get into your questions, I wanted to call attention to the posting header that precedes yours on craigslist: 'hungry to suck some loads today.' I didn't click on his, but it created a stream of consciousness so when I read your heading I expected something entirely different from your ad: cum guzzling and all that. Anyway, it made me laugh that it's quite the opposite.

1) What is the most intense of vegetables?
I think that depends on your idea of intense. Durian is very intense, it's a fruit, I suppose (not a vegetable), but it's pungent like cheese; something entirely unexpected from a spiky pod. But if you mean the most intensely pleasurable vegetable, which I bet you do, then I'll have to slightly bend the rules again, because bean dishes are always the most intensely tasty for me. I know technically speaking, they're legumes. In the Bay Area there are many great lentil dishes, but the thing I'm craving the most at the moment is Frijoles Charros from Tamarindo, in Oakland. It will change Mexican food for you forever.

2) What is your guilty pleasure when it comes to food?
My guilty pleasure is old school sweet and sour pork. I grew up on the crap. It was always a treat when my parents took us out to dinner at the Chinese (American) restaurant in my tiny home town, so I associate it not only with my first taste of MSG - which by the way is fantastic and should be used more often, not less - but with great memories of my family eating happily together, in a darkened red, sensual room, around a table heaped with a feast of cheap Chinese food. It was heaven, and I make no apologies for my memory. But it is a little tacky, especially with all the authentic and very tasty Chinese food in San Francisco, to order sweet and sour pork. So I rarely do, and NEVER in company.

3) Tell me about a cooking disaster:
I haven't had a lot of disasters in the kitchen, because I tend to follow the recipe fairly closely until I'm comfortable enough to venture on my own. And I learn much more from my mistakes, especially because it's so disappointing. I have this emotional response and sense memory that prevent me from ever doing something so stupid again. Like this one time, I'd spent at least two hours on a yellow Indian curry, and the final step was to add in yogurt to thicken it. There was this terse caveat to not let it curdle, but by that point I was tired and hungry, not really paying attention, and I put the yogurt in when the curry was too hot. Of course it curdled; I was so upset. It still tasted okay, but the texture was all wrong. But like I said, I've never done that again!

And a bonus! Although I didn't pick this guy, he had a great food disaster:

So last year I started making yogurt (clearly I am a foodie too). I usually make thick Greek-style yogurt, so I have a pretty good handle on it. Eventually, I wanted to branch out. I found a craigslist ad for fresh goat's milk. Now, any goat's milk available in stores is ultra pasteurized, negating any possibility of culturing. Through a strange blip in California dairy code, it is illegal to sell unpasteurized goat's milk for human consumption. So, I contacted the goat lady from craigslist and arranged to go to her place in the Oakland hills to procure some black market milk. I am not always a talky one, but the goat lady was happy to do all the talking. She had me meet the goats. She made me go through the extensive milk cooling process (so gamey-tasting bacteria doesn't form in it). She had me taste test the milk from each of the two goats (different breeds & ages). She made me try the six different kinds of cheese she makes from each kind of milk. This goat lady was very, very, very excited about her goats. She mentioned that she had once tried making yogurt, but it didn't work out too well. That didn't worry me, I was a yogurt making pro. After about an hour of standing awkwardly in the goat lady's kitchen and listening to all manner of goat stories, she made me sign a guest book that certified that I was buying the milk for my cat and not myself (purchase for livestock consumption is perfectly legal). I handed over $25 for two gallons of milk. I can't believe I paid $12.50 for each gallon of milk! What was I thinking? I was thinking this was going to be the best damn yogurt ever. I rushed right home and got to work. Since this is a disaster story, you know how it turned out. Twelve hours of careful fermenting later, I had... slightly syrupy sour milk. I didn't have the heart to throw away the most expensive sour milk I'd ever purchased, so I choked some of it down in smoothies and stared at it in the back of the fridge for a month or so. I learned my lesson: do not doubt the goat lady.

Week 3 Questions and Menu

2010-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

Here are the questions of the week! Feel free to answer them too in the comments sections. My answers follow.

1. What is the most intense of vegetables?

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables." It's the opening line of Tom Robbin's Jitterbug Perfume. It makes perfect sense.

2. What is your guilty pleasure when it comes to food?

I don't really feel guilty about eating anything, but if I had to choose it would be bacon. Even more specifically: bacon grease. My roomate saves it so I started to and I like to fry things in it when there isn't any meat in the dish. Like beans, vegetables, and eggs (the best).

I also love wrapping anything and everything in bacon.

3. Tell me about a cooking disaster that you had.

Both my roomate and I were baking things for a potluck. I was experimenting with a cake recipe and he was making his brother's famous banana bread for the first time. He had been craving it for months. Because of time constraints we baked our stuff at the same time. I got the measurements all wrong and the cake exploded all over the oven and started burning. We had to take everything out and clean it up. Even though we put the banana bread back in, the temperature had fluctuated too much so the outside of the bread was hard as a rock but the inside was uncooked and mushy. It was kind of gross and I felt really bad especially because my cake came out okay. Now, I stay out of the kitchen when he makes banana bread.

And here is the menu:

Almond Yogurt

Beet Salad

Shrimp Alfredo with Fetuccine

Chocolate Mousse

Future menu or recipe ideas are very welcome!

Dinner 2

2010-02-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

This dinner almost didn't happen
My top craigslist pick bailed on me. My secondary craigslist pick couldn't make it. The night before the dinner, I still had no one. I even walked down to the bar where my current crush works, ready to put myself on the line and ask him to dinner. He wasn't there.

But sometimes things work out. Last week, out of the blue after six months, a guy I briefly, sort-of dated, g-chatted me. After barely even saying "hi," he asked me to hook up. I was working, sick, and totally thrown off, so was cold to him. Later, since I had no one else for dinner, I thought we could work out an exchange: he would be part of this experiment and I would help him out. He agreed, but before we get to dinner...

The story of how we met:
One night last spring, I was crossing an intersection downtown and a guy on a bike pulled up to the red light. As I crossed, we checked each other out. After I passed him we caught each other doing a triple take. Even though it was dark and he was wearing a helmet, his eyes were a super-intense blue. I kept thinking about the encounter, so I decided to miss-connections him on craigslist. After a couple days he e-mailed me (I didn't think that ever happened on missed connections) and we started to hang out. Things were fine for a bit until (at least in my mind this seemed to be the turning point, I'm sure there were other factors) one night, we were making out and we bumped mouths together, and I chipped his tooth with mine (so embarrassing)! Things fizzled out after that and he only talked to me if he wanted to hook up. Then we stopped talking altogether.

The Dinner:
He showed up with desert and his hair looked better than I remembered it. We started with French onion soup that took me four hours to make. He loved it and told me that he'd discovered that the longer you cook onions, the better they taste. He'd been cooking goulash, in which there's a similar process of cooking the onions for many hours. Even though I like raw onions too, I guess it's true. The soup was the best dish of the night, with a well-rounded, rich flavor.

You can find the very-involved recipe here.

We obviously had a lot of catching up to do.

The short version of his life during the past six months:
He had been working as an engineer, but he hated his job. The company had just laid off a bunch of people and he was pissed that he wasn't one of them. He quit anyway without the severance package. He still wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he had a few ideas: go back to school for film, start his own business, or get another boring job. He said that he's a lazy and indecisive person so he did some other things instead. He joined a gay basketball team and played in a tournament in Boston. They didn't do very well, but he's helping to organize another tournament in San Francisco in the next few weeks.

While he was on the East coast (he'd never been before), he decided to visit New York City. He went alone and explored the city by walking as far as he could until he was exhausted and then took the subway somewhere else. He tried to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge twice, but the first time, by the time he walked there, there was a downpour; the second time he walked there from his hotel, but was so tired he just sat on a bench. He wants to live there at some point and his ideal situation is if someone would give him a job and an apartment in SF and NYC. Good luck with that one.

The Questions
We got to the entree and I discovered that the pork had dried up when I left it in the oven to stay warm. Yuck. We had to force it down and my guest did so very politely (but slowly). I decided to ask him the questions that I asked on my CL post. When he was a kid he hated tomatoes and only sort of likes them now. The texture reminds him of a baby fetus or cold intestines. On the other hand, he loves carrots and went on a tangent about the fact that there are purple carrots (but he was surprised by my purple potatoes).

Well, Ta-dah, it's true!

Then I asked him, if he were a fruit, what would he be? He said a pomegranate, not only because he likes them, but because he too, compartmentalized his life. He kept his gay friends separate from his straight friends and those separate from his work friends, and that separate from his family life. It's partly because he hasn't always been that comfortable with his sexuality and also that he is an anal-retentive, awkward person. And part of it is that he is a recovering alcoholic (he was wasted from the time he 17 until he was 23) and it stunted his maturity and ability to put his life together. Only now has he started to catch up to being an adult and being more relaxed with who he is.

As far as favorite restaurants in San Francisco, we both agreed: El Farolito.

By the time, I asked him if he wanted seconds, I had definitely decided that he had changed in a really good way. It's hard to know your flaws and try to deal with them. I know that I don't. He turned down seconds, but not just because of the pork.

Why he turned down seconds:

He said he couldn't eat a whole lot anymore. When I asked why, he said that he had done a nine day Master Cleanse. This involved only drinking water and a concoction of lemon, maple syrup and cayenne. Oh, and a salt water flush: he chugged a liter of salt water everyday, all at once, which totally flushed him out. He wanted to do it to get rid of all the lingering toxins from his pothead, drinking days. For the first three days he felt terrible, but afterwards it started to feel normal and (euphoric? I asked jokingly) yes, euphoric. He even tried playing basketball once and almost passed out, but it made him feel euphoric, too. The worst part was that he was cold all the time (totally freezing) and had to sleep with socks and shoes, flannel, top layers and his hoodie up. That sounded so sad, but anyway, he liked it and now he never felt like overeating or eating junk food.

"Desert"

So then there was "desert." It was nice to make out (it had been a while for me) and even though he's really hot, afterwards I felt myself getting cold towards him. I just realized that I don't want physical stuff if it doesn't come with any sort of security. And he definitely has nothing to offer in terms of that: he's totally unreliable and has made it clear, he's not interested in anything else. He's great in a lot of ways and has grown since I last saw him, but he still treats the physical as something he can take and then just leave. I realize a lot of people can separate sex and their feelings, but I can't.

On Fire

After the break, we had the real desert. He had brought a cranberry pear tart from Bi-Rite. He almost started a fire when he put it in the toaster-oven to heat up because he left it on the cardboard. It was good, though and we topped it with homemade whipped cream.

We started to make our awkward goodbyes, and he was really sincere and sweet. He was glad to have caught up. But I had a hard time returning the sentiment. That coldness was still there, and I couldn't quite see the point of the whole thing. I grumbled some poker-faced responses and showed him the door. At the last minute, I awkwardly kissed him. Maybe just in case I don't see him for another six months.

Week 2 Questions and Menu

2010-01-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

These are the questions I asked for this week. I figured that maybe I should answer them, too. And I would love to hear your answers, so please leave comments.

1. What is your least favorite food you were forced to eat as a child?

I remember hating olives. One Christmas my family had them as appetizers and to force me to eat them, my grandmother told me that I would like olives if I ate seven of them in a row. I fell for it and choked down all seven, but I still hated olives. Although now I love them.

2. If you were a fruit, what would you be? Why?

I would be a corossol, which is the French word for soursop. This is a fruit that was common when I lived both in Mexico and Madagascar. It has a spiky green outside and a pure white inside with large black seeds. The flavor is unlike any other fruit. I'm not trying to say that I'm super unique, but sometimes I can't even figure myself out: spiky, sweet, sour.

3. What is your favorite restaurant in San Francisco?

Savor in Noe valley. Their savory crepes have really great flavor combinations and for the price, the servings are huge.

And here is the menu for the week:
French Onion Soup
Pork with Mint Plum Sauce
Almond Green Beans
Rosemary Potatoes

Dinner 1:

2010-01-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

So, I cooked frantically for two hours and this is what I came up with:

Cucumber Raita (you can find the recipe here)

Chicken Tikka Masala (the recipe here is similar)

Indian Rice Pudding (recipe at foodnetwork.com)

Dinner Guest 1 showed up perfectly on time. I was not ready for him. Yes, the meal was finished and yes, I was dressed, but after having not felt nervous all day, the moment the bell rang, I had a mini-male, premature, heat flash.

But I went to the door and ushered my guest in. He's a thirty-year old, half-Filipino guy with glasses and a jacket with a graphic spider on it. He's a bit shorter than me and a little chubby, but it gives his face and smile a happy-baby roundness. I was so nervous that I could barely look at him as I showed him to the kitchen and fluttered around, gathering plates and utensils, opening wine, and firing, as well as, answering all those awkwardly placed, get-to know-if-you're-a-creepo questions: Why are you doing this? Where are you from? Where exactly do you live now? What do you do? Why did you answer the post?

After getting the basics out of the way (to his relief I didn't seem to be someone to poison the food) we started our meal. We realized that we are both obsessed with food. I was almost intimidated as he told me about Indian cooking classes he'd taken and all the different Indian dishes he could make including roti, Saag Paneer and some delicious puffed-rice desert I can't remember the name of. It looked like I had some competition. Luckily, he said he like my food (and had seconds).

The topic stayed on food for a while and he told me this story:

While he was visiting New York, he walked down the street and saw some guy sitting on a bench that he thought was kind of hot. As he got closer he thought, "That looks kind of like Anthony Bourdain" (the host of the Travel Channel's 'No Reservation'). After he had passed the man, he realized that it was Anthony Bourdain, just sitting on a bench checking his e-mail on his phone. My guest kept walking, but then got up the courage to go talk to him, since Anthony was alone and not doing anything. By the time my guest got back to the bench, Anthony had got up and crossed the street. My guest noted which door he had gone in, and later checked to see what Anthony got up to on his days off. The door had two bells: one was a therapist's office and the other was a swanky health spa. Both seemed likely options for the hardcore food critic.

My dinner guest is a product manager for an insurance firm. At first this made no sense to me and he realized he had never explained it to anyone. All the people he worked with knew already and his friends didn't really care. Products aren't just physical. Insurance is a product that needs to be tweaked for every state that it's used in. Different states have different requirements for coverage and he manages a team that figures all that out.

Needless to say, he's not thrilled about his job, but the pay is good. Between compliments of the food ("I'm easy to please) and several glasses of cheap wine ("I'm not picky"), he tells me all the other stuff he does in his free time. Besides cooking lessons, he's been taking voice lessons for a year, just started guitar lessons, is about to take a yoga teacher's training class, and has studied Spanish, Portuguese and German at various times in his life. I was curious about the vocal lessons. Who just decides to up and take singing lessons when you're thirty? He said that he felt like he could never do it before. Growing up, his family was weird about stuff like that. They're Catholic (I was also raised Catholic, so I get it).

We also talked a lot about San Francisco. He lives in an all-queer building in Hayes Valley: a bear couple who just got a little cub; a group of cute, young gay guys; a middle-aged couple; and the obligatory creepy, old gay man. My guest loves going to Aunt Charlie's because there are always freaks there ("you would like them because you go to art school"). One night he went outside of the bar for a smoke with friends: crack heads were running by while a man wearing a little skirt and a huge hole in the ass of his pantyhose pranced about, and a group of gutter punks who just got their outfits from JC Penny sat on the curb. Classy.

By desert (he ate slowly and politely, while I ate quickly and sloppily), we were talking about books (my favorite subject because I'm a writer). We debated the virtual book. I, of course, took the old school side and argued that books were necessary in paper form, and it would take many more years to phase them out. He agreed but liked virtual books because you could carry all the books you wanted in just one hand-held screen, and it wouldn't be a problem to read big, heavy books. We both frowned at the un-perfected digital screens for reading. Writers, we still have hope.

I knew this dinner wouldn't go any further and luckily, so did he. So after desert, my gracious guest said he had a meeting the next day and needed to get home. I showed him the door and we parted with only a mildly awkward handshake and a non-committal "maybe I'll run into you."

I proceeded to collapse on the floor in exhaustion. Entertaining is straining.

Dinner Guest 1

2010-01-23T23:39:00.001-08:00

Here is the best response for this week and the winner of the date:

1. My fave foods are many, I'm just going to start a list because it seems like a fun thing i've never done before i'm sure i'll stop before i get to name all of my favorites: dal, warm bread, sushi (i mean nigiri or sashimi), cake, pizza, noodles in soup, a good burger, steak, lumpia, pancit, steak fries with condiments, dried black mission figs, fresh avocado, white nectarine, fuji apple, fizzy drinks....

2. I ate cuy, which is guinea pig, on my trip to Peru. It was like eating roadkill, it was flattened and still had all it's limbs and a face. It didn't taste very good, and I'm not judging solely on looks.

3. My thing is to cook what I can without going beyond a certain radius, not because it's an in-thing to do, but because I really do believe it's better for the meal, for the earth and because I don't have a car. While it's really mostly about the practical reason of not having a car and not liking to drive in the city, it conveniently supports my moral reasons. In the past year, I've been making a good amount of indian foods. I've also done some nice baking projects, middle eastern food, cajun food, homemade pasta (didn't have a pasta press so it was only OK), filipino food, mexican food, japanese food, chinese food, salads. i just watched julie/julia and i think it would be nice to make the boned duck in pastry sometime this year!

Week 1 Ad

2010-01-23T23:35:00.000-08:00

This is the add posted to craigslist:

Sharing food is a common yet intimate action. This is a return to the old-school date. Here's the deal. I will cook you a meal. You will come over and eat with me. Simple. Delicious. If you are interested, answer the following questions:

1. What is your favorite food?
2. What is the most bizarre food you've eaten?
3. What is your specialty when you cook?

The best answers will get the date.

Here is the menu:
Chicken Tikka Masala
Basmati Rice
Raita with Cucumber Wedges

This will be the first of a weekly happening, so stay tuned if you don't get the date.